The last time we checked on the strain of avian flu (i.e., “bird flu) sweeping across the globe, Northern California poultry farms had been hit hard, the elephant seal pup population in Venezuela wiped out, the first penguin infections were reported, and two people seriously infected by H5N1 in Cambodia.
Furthermore, research indicates the virus has mutated to target the brains of mammals.
You are likely thinking that responsible scientists would focus on looking for cures rather than mutating the pathogen into something worse.
The US government is spending $1million of American taxpayer money to fund experiments on dangerous bird flu viruses in collaboration with Chinese scientists.The research involves infecting ducks and geese with different strains of viruses to make them more infectious, and study the viruses’ potential to ‘jump into mammalian hosts,’ according to research documents.It is being funded through the US Department of Agriculture and collaborating studies will take place at sites in Georgia, Beijing and Edinburgh in Scotland.It comes despite similar research being restricted in 2022 and growing concerns that dubious Chinese studies may have started the Covid pandemic.
US Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is demanding information about Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) “dangerous bird flu experiments”, which apparently involves a researcher connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (the likely source of the covid virus).
The Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing will help with tests to infect vaccinated chickens, mallard ducks, species of Chinese geese and Japanese quail to evaluate the virus’s transmissibility and “potential to jump into mammalian hosts.”Ernst told [USDA Secretary] Tom Vilsack to hand over any departmental information about whether there are any safeguards in place, if the experiments constitute risky gain-of-function research, and what portion is being done in China.“The health and safety of Americans are too important to just wing it, and Biden’s USDA should have had more apprehension before sending any taxpayer dollars to collaborate with the CCP on risky avian flu research,” Ernst told The Post in a statement.“They should know by now to suspect ‘fowl’ play when it comes to researchers who have ties to the dangerous Wuhan Lab, and simply switching from bats to birds causes concern that they are creating more pathogens of pandemic potential,” she added, referring to risky experiments that may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research project received a grant to fund research from April 2021 to March 2026. The researchers receiving the money are from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Athens, Georgia, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The USDA offered the following response via email from a USDA spokesperson.
“Any time Senator Ernst has a question for USDA about our research or our commitment to helping America’s farmers mitigate animal diseases like highly pathogenic avian influenza, she should reach out to us directly before putting misinformation in a press release or public letter. This particular research project was applied for in 2019 and was approved in 2020, and despite the Senator’s assertions, this is not ‘gain-of-function’ research.What’s more, USDA’s funding is only being committed to the specific components carried out by our own team located in Athens, Georgia, and is not any way contributing to research taking place in the UK or China.Because animal diseases present a global threat, it is common for international researchers to conduct independent research that’s connected to the same end goal – but what Senator Ernst lays out in her letter is far off base from what’s actually transpiring, and on top of that is based on approval decisions that predate this Administration.”
I find no consolation in the USDA response.
Covid was probably the mildest warning we could get about the consequences of gain-of-function research to make viruses more transmissible and deadlier.
The current version of bird flu is already an effective killer, and our tax dollars should not be going to make it more so, no matter where that research takes place or with whom.
One last note: Cambodia has reported even more human infections with an H5N1 strain.
The [most recent] patient is a 17-year-old girl from Kampot province, according to a ministry statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog. Kampot province is in southern Cambodia. The girl is hospitalized in the intensive care unit and is improving….Cambodia has now reported 5 cases for 2024 and a total of 11 since February 2023, following nearly a decade with no human infections. Genetic sequencing on samples from several cases has revealed that the virus belongs to an older H5N1 clade (2.3.2.1c) that still circulates in poultry in some Asian countries, including Cambodia. It is different from the newer H5N1 clade (2.3.4.4b) that is currently affecting wild birds and poultry in multiple world regions, including the United States.
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